1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to modular disk drive storage trays. More particularly, the invention concerns a disk drive storage enclosure with one cooling path for the storage media and a separate cooling path for other non-drive storage support equipment such as the control electronics and power supply.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today""s information age presents an incredible amount of data to manage. Since computers are the chief reason for this data explosion, most of this data exists in electronic form. Accordingly, computers are further needed to process, transmit, receive, and store such data.
Data storage is a critical function, whether it occurs in extremely fast and short term storage such as a random access memory, longer term storage such as magnetic disk drive storage, or archival storage such as magnetic tape. Magnetic disk drive storage is a popular means of storage because stored data persists even without a continual source of electricity, and because this type of data storage is affordable for many applications.
In addition to the familiar hard drives of personal computers, magnetic disk drive storage is frequently implemented on a more massive scale. For example, some systems aggregate a large number of magnetic disk drives into a single storage tray, utilizing control electronics, power supplies, cooling features, and other infrastructure that is common to all drives in the tray.
Although such trays may be used individually, their modular nature is one of their chief benefits. Namely, the shape of such trays permits the trays to be stackably mounted together in a large, frame or xe2x80x9crack.xe2x80x9d Trays in a rack are traditionally positioned with the same orientation, permitting technicians to easily interconnect like components of the trays using busses, channels, or other suitable hardware, thereby aggregating their collective storage capabilities.
The contents of a representative tray include disk drives, control electronics, power supplies, cooling fans, and other related electrical equipment. The disk drives are typically mounted in front, with the other equipment being placed at rear. This arrangement is intentionally designed for convenient removal of disk drives, which have a relatively higher fail rate than other components in the tray. Because heat can cause disk drive failure, storage trays include a number of fans situated at the rear, to induce airflow from front to rear, first across the heat-sensitive drives and then across the remainder of the tray""s contents. This front-to-rear cooling arrangement is also beneficial because it accommodates the frequent side-by-side positioning of storage racks, leaving the trays"" front intakes and rear exhausts free from obstruction.
Conventional storage trays enjoy widespread use today, and satisfy many different applications. Nonetheless, engineers at nStor Technologies, Inc. are continually interested in improving the performance and efficiency of mass storage machines. One area of possible focus concerns the cooling of magnetic disk drives in mass storage, since heat is still a significant cause of disk drive failures.
Broadly, the present invention concerns a disk drive storage enclosure with one cooling path for the storage media and a separate cooling path for other non-drive storage support components such as the controller hardware, power supplies, etc. Within the enclosure, storage media are stored up front, with control electronics, power supplies, and other equipment stored at rear. The storage media is separated from other non-drive storage support components by a central ventilating chamber. Two separate cooling paths are utilized. In one cooling path, intake air enters the storage media from the enclosure""s front face, then passes into the central ventilating chamber before exhausting through the chamber""s side wall. A separate cooling path serves the controller hardware, power supplies, and other non-storage equipment. In this path, intake air passes laterally through the control electronics. The two cooling paths are driven by multiple fans, which may be provided in a common container for ease of installation, repair, replacement, etc.
The foregoing features may be implemented in a number of different forms. For example, the invention may be implemented to provide an apparatus such as a disk drive storage enclosure with an isolated cooling path for the storage media. In another embodiment, the invention may be implemented to provide a method of cooling a disk drive storage enclosure using separate paths for storage drives and non-storage equipment.
The invention affords its users with a number of distinct advantages. For example, the independent, dual cooling paths keep the disk drive storage media cooler than previous arrangements. One reason for this is that the drives"" abbreviated cooling path offers less resistance to intake air; after passing over the drives, air is quickly vented from the storage enclosure without having to pass through downstream control electronics. Another reason for the improved disk drive cooling is that the drives are physically separated from support electronics that can produce significant heat. Beneficially, running the drives at a cooler temperature helps increase the equipment""s lifespan, known as xe2x80x9cmean time before xe2x80x9cfailurexe2x80x9d (MTBF). As another benefit, control electronics enjoy more efficient cooling because their intake air comes directly from outside, rather than air that has already been warmed by passing over storage media. The invention also provides a number of other advantages and benefits, which should be apparent from the following description of the invention.